Malvern man missed bombs at marathon by minutes

When Will Mullin lined up at the start of the Boston Marathon for the first time on Monday, he was overjoyed to participate in the world’s most prestigious foot race.

Mullin, a 44-year-old Malvern resident who works at a nearby financial planning firm, said he was stopped on the course about 500 yards from race’s end when two bombs exploded near the finish line, killing three and injuring 170 others. Mullin said he didn’t hear the bombs go off, but was caught in the immediate confusion on the course just after the explosions.

A former Red Cross board member and accomplished triathlon athlete, Mullin described a scene of jubilation on the course as he neared the finish line just before the explosions.

Advertisement

“There are hundreds of thousands of people cheering, you just got past mile 25, and you’re trying to get in the zone to finish the race,” he said.

Then, suddenly, confusion and chaos took over. The runners were stopped on the course, but few had any details on what was going on ahead of them. Mullin said the police officers he spoke to seemed as confused and alarmed as the race’s participants and spectators.

“You could just see the craziness going on,” Mullin said. He was one of the few runners who had a cell phone with him during the race, and after the bombs went off he let many fellow runners use it to notify loved ones that they were OK. Eventually, cell phone networks were shut down to prevent the potential of remote detonations of additional explosives.

“When the cell phone service got shut off, that caused even more panic and multiplied the anxiety,” Mullin said.

Mullin said that he feels especially lucky due his family’s absence at Monday’s race. At every race he has ran, his wife and three kids have waited for him just before the finish line. Often, his young children join him as he finishes a race.

“This is the first race they didn’t come to, and I’m so thankful for that. That’s the thing that keeps running through my mind, thank god I didn’t bring my family,” Mullin said, mentioning the tragic death of 8-year-old Martin Richard and the severe injuries suffered by the boy’s mother and young sister. “That’s what haunts me the most.”

Mullin pointed to other coincidences, or possibly twists of fate, that delayed his finish.

He met a few other runners during the pre-race stretch and agreed to buddy up with them for the run, something he is not accustomed to doing. He and his running partners decided on a slower pace so they could enjoy the revelry of the race. Had he been alone, Mullin said, he probably would have pushed himself to run just a bit faster.

“I ran a slow race and thank God I wasn’t there when it happened,” he said. “Some of these things I never do turned out to be the best things that ever happened to me.”

Mullin was running to raise money for the Red Cross House in Philadelphia. Despite his close brush with tragedy on Monday, Mullin said he would sign up for next year’s Boston Marathon tomorrow, if he could.

“You can’t let the bad guys win,” he said, adding that he hopes next year’s marathon is bigger than ever.

According to Mullin, in the immediate aftermath of the explosion’s Boston’s residents and business owners poured out of the buildings lining the course, offering food, water, and clothing to the stranded runners. Mullin said that even though the day was marred by that one tragic event, he was overwhelmed by the hundreds of other gestures of goodwill he witnessed.